Wally Haas: Gambling won't fix Illinois' problems

The calendar says it’s April 20, but it feels like “Groundhog Day” and I’m either Bill Murray or one of the other characters caught in a time warp.

Wally Haas

The calendar says it’s April 20, but it feels like “Groundhog Day” and I’m either Bill Murray or one of the other characters caught in a time warp.

For six years I’ve written columns here and there about efforts to increase gambling in Illinois. There has been talk of more gambling since riverboats hit the waters in the early 1990s. This year is no different.

There are measures in the Illinois General Assembly to allow more spots to play in existing casinos, to add casinos, allow 24-hour gambling, allow for an Internet Lottery and legalize betting on horse races on the Internet.

One gambling-related measure that went nowhere was a bill that would allow you to voice your opinion on whether the state should expand gambling.

Lawmakers see gambling as an easy way to raise revenue without ticking off voters. It doesn’t matter whether they’re Democrats or Republicans. State Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has proposed some of the additions mentioned above. House Republican Leader Tom Cross has a plan to pay for a capital plan by expanding gambling.

For a state that’s more than $3 billion in debt, pays its bills late, has an underfunded pension system, a crumbling infrastructure and too many other problems to list here, the promises of gambling riches are tempting.

It’s fool’s gold.

I could fill this space — and have in the past — with all the social problems gambling causes. Studies have found that there are likely to be increases in divorce, separations, marital problems, less time spent with the family, work absenteeism, alcohol consumption, and reductions in work productivity, civic and religious activities.

As long as I’m in “Groundhog Day” mode, let me recycle this 2003 quote from Tom Grey, spokesman for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.

“You see grandmothers embezzling money from their church to feed their addiction. There was a mother who let her child die in an overheated car while she went to play video poker,” Grey said. “To say it’s not harming people is a lie.”

Grey left Rockford a couple of years ago for Spokane, Wash., to be closer to his grandchildren. When I first met him in 2002, I probably would have supported many of the gambling measures that have been proposed.

But Grey convinced me that gambling is bad public policy.

“The house always wins,” he said. “It’s a zero-sum game. You can’t gamble yourself rich as an individual, why would you think a state could?”

Gambling proponents will tell you that the genie is out of the bottle and there’s no way to put it back. Heck, if we already have gambling, let’s have more and more.

It’s time to quit playing games and find real solutions to the state’s problems.